Iran’s Spy Chief Is Dead: Israel Kills IRGC Intelligence Head Majid Khademi in Dawn Strike on Tehran

TEHRAN / TEL AVIV, April 6, 2026 — Major General Majid Khademi, the head of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps Intelligence Organisation — one of the most powerful and secretive figures in Iran’s entire security apparatus — was killed in a precision dawn airstrike on Tehran on Monday April 6. The IRGC confirmed his death in a statement carried by its affiliated Tasnim News Agency, describing the killing as “a criminal terrorist attack by the American-Zionist enemy.” Israel’s Defence Minister Israel Katz announced the strike publicly, calling Khademi one of the three most senior figures in the IRGC and declaring: “Iran’s leaders live with a sense of being targeted. We will continue to hunt them down one by one.”

The killing of Khademi is among the most significant blows to Iran’s intelligence and security leadership since the war began on February 28. He was effective second-in-command within the IRGC, a rare survivor of multiple waves of Israeli and American targeting — and now he is gone. The strike also killed Quds Force special operations commander Asghar Bagheri in the same operation, according to Fox News, citing Israeli officials.

Who Was Majid Khademi

Khademi was not a familiar face to the outside world — and that was entirely by design. According to reporting by the Voice of Emirates, he was known internally by multiple aliases — appearing at times as “Majid Khademi” and at other times as “Majid Hosseini” — while his real name was kept a closely guarded secret within the IRGC’s inner circles. He held two doctorates, one in National Security and one in Strategic Defence Studies, and had been considered a possible successor to IRGC intelligence chief Hossein Taeb since as early as 2014.

His career spanned nearly five decades inside Iran’s security apparatus. In May 2018 he was appointed head of the Defence Ministry’s Intelligence Protection Organisation. In July 2022 he moved to head the IRGC’s own Intelligence Protection Organisation — the internal body responsible for counter-espionage and protecting the IRGC from infiltration. In June 2025 he was elevated to lead the entire IRGC Intelligence Organisation, replacing Brigadier General Mohammad Kazemi who had been killed in an Israeli airstrike during the Twelve-Day War. He had been in that top role for less than a year when he was killed.

A senior Israeli official told Fox News that Khademi “was effectively No. 2 within the IRGC, one of the few senior commanders who managed to survive multiple waves of Israeli and American targeting over the past year — until now. He kept moving, relocating, but ultimately he was hunted down and eliminated.” The same official said Khademi “was deeply involved in attempts to penetrate U.S. systems, including efforts to breach the Pentagon” and “coordinated extensively with Russia.”

“Khademi wasn’t just any figure — he was effectively No. 2 within the IRGC, one of the few senior commanders who managed to survive multiple waves of Israeli and American targeting over the past year — until now.”

— Senior Israeli official speaking to Fox News, April 6, 2026

OSINT: Where the Strike Hit and What Else Was Targeted

The IDF described the strike as taking place in central Tehran, confirmed by UNN citing the IDF directly. OSINT analysts at Iran Strike Map, citing Axios, placed the strike more specifically at Khademi’s private residence in the Narmak district of eastern Tehran — a residential neighbourhood cross-referenced by open-source analysts with social media footage and satellite imagery showing impact craters and burn scars consistent with a precision munition strike on a building. Exact coordinates remain unconfirmed as of publication. The governor of Baharestan — a separate neighbourhood in southern Tehran — confirmed 13 people killed and 20 injured in the same strike wave targeting a residential area, according to the Iran Live Map.

The Khademi strike was one of several conducted in the same early morning wave. Gateway Pundit reported thick black smoke rising near Azadi Square following an airstrike on the grounds of Sharif University of Technology — a facility sanctioned by multiple countries over the years for its role in Iran’s ballistic missile programme. Iranian state broadcaster IRIB confirmed gas outages affecting parts of Tehran following the strikes. More than 25 people were killed across Monday’s wave of attacks according to the Associated Press.

OSINT strike map: Tehran, April 6, 2026. Khademi strike: IDF confirmed central Tehran. OSINT analysis citing Axios via Iran Strike Map places strike at Narmak district. Exact coordinates unconfirmed. Strategy Battles graphic — not to scale.

The Decapitation Campaign — Who Has Been Killed

Khademi’s death continues a systematic campaign that has now eliminated an extraordinary cross-section of Iran’s senior leadership since the war began. As reported by The New Region and confirmed by multiple sources, those killed since February 28 include Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei himself, killed on the first day of the conflict. Secretary of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council Ali Larijani was subsequently killed. Basij commander Gholamreza Soleimani was also killed. IRGC Naval chief Alireza Tangsiri was killed in late March. Hezbollah southern front commander Haj Youssef Ismail Hashem was killed by Israel on April 1. Quds Force Unit 840 commander Asghar Bagheri was killed in the same wave as Khademi on April 6. And now Khademi himself — the man responsible for all of Iran’s intelligence operations — added to the list. The New Region also notes unconfirmed reports that newly appointed Supreme Leader Mojtaba Khamenei suffered injuries in an airstrike, though this has not been independently verified.

According to Wikipedia’s documented record of the conflict, Khademi is now the second consecutive IRGC intelligence chief to be killed by Israeli strikes — his predecessor Mohammad Kazemi was killed in the Twelve-Day War of June 2025. The position of IRGC intelligence chief has now been eliminated twice in under a year. The Jerusalem Post noted that Khademi had evaded multiple earlier targeting attempts before finally being located and killed.

What Khademi’s Death Means

The IRGC Intelligence Organisation is one of the most powerful security bodies in Iran. It answers only to the Supreme Leader, operates parallel to and often above the civilian intelligence ministry, and is responsible for domestic surveillance, counter-espionage, protection of nuclear and missile programmes from foreign infiltration, overseas intelligence operations, and the detention and interrogation of perceived enemies of the state. According to Gulf News, the organisation has been linked to the detention of Western nationals and has been accused of carrying out extraterritorial killings targeting opponents of the Iranian theocracy.

Khademi’s removal is operationally significant in several ways. His organisation was responsible for counter-intelligence — detecting and neutralising Israeli and American penetration of Iran’s military and nuclear programmes. Losing that capability at the peak of an active war, when foreign intelligence services are almost certainly running the most intensive penetration operations against Iran in its history, creates a window of vulnerability for Tehran that cannot be quickly closed. It also removes the person most responsible for protecting senior IRGC leadership from exactly the kind of targeting that just killed him.

The Jerusalem Post reported that the IDF said Khademi’s death would reduce the regime’s ability to project terror globally and also its ability to suppress Iranian protesters should they return to the streets in the future. Israeli Defence Minister Katz was explicit: “The Revolutionary Guard are shooting at civilians and we are eliminating the leaders of the terrorists. Iran’s leaders live with a sense of being targeted. We will continue to hunt them down one by one,” as reported by Daily Sabah.

Iran’s Response and the Wider Picture

Iran launched retaliatory missile strikes at Israel and Gulf states in the hours following the Tehran strikes. Associated Press confirmed Iranian missiles struck the northern Israeli city of Haifa, killing four people in the rubble of a residential building. Kuwait, the UAE, and Saudi Arabia all activated their air defence systems to intercept incoming Iranian missiles and drones. The IRGC pledged that Khademi’s death would not go unanswered.

Monday’s strikes also targeted Iran’s South Pars petrochemical plant at Asaluyeh — confirmed by Israeli Defence Minister Katz as a strike on “the largest petrochemical facility in Iran” responsible for half the country’s petrochemical production, according to the Associated Press. The strikes coincided with Trump’s Tuesday deadline for Iran to reopen the Strait of Hormuz. Iran showed no signs of compliance. Brent crude rose to $109 per barrel in early Monday trading — up more than 50 percent since the war began.

A 45-day ceasefire proposal brokered by Egyptian, Pakistani, and Turkish mediators was circulating among officials on Monday, according to two Mideast officials who spoke to the Associated Press. The proposal called for reopening the Strait of Hormuz and a halt to hostilities. Neither side had publicly acknowledged the proposal by Monday afternoon.

Analysis

Majid Khademi spent decades building walls around Iran’s secrets. He ran counter-espionage, protected nuclear and missile programmes from foreign penetration, and oversaw internal surveillance designed to keep the regime secure from both domestic and foreign threats. He was, in the clearest possible terms, the man responsible for making sure that what just happened to him could not happen. He failed — and so did every layer of protection his organisation built around Iran’s senior leadership. The fact that Israel and the U.S. have now killed two consecutive IRGC intelligence chiefs in less than a year is not just a military achievement. It is a statement about the depth of intelligence penetration of Iran’s most sensitive institutions. Khademi knew where the bodies were buried, which operations were running, which agents were in the field, and which systems protected the regime’s leadership. All of that knowledge died with him in central Tehran before dawn on Monday morning.

Sources

• The New Region — Iran Confirms Killing of IRGC Intel Chief, April 6, 2026
• Fox News — Majid Khademi IRGC Intelligence Chief Killed in Israeli Precision Strike
• UNN — Israel Claims Elimination of IRGC Intelligence Chief in Central Tehran
• Jerusalem Post — IDF Assassinated IRGC Intelligence Chief Majid Khademi
• Daily Sabah — IRGC Intelligence Chief Khademi Killed in US-Israeli Airstrikes
• Associated Press — Israel Attacks Key Iranian Petrochemical Plant as Trump’s Deadline Looms